V: "Welcome to the War"Review

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After more than four months, the Visitors are back...

By Eric Goldman

Warning: Full Spoilers for the episode follow.

I have to admit, I was nervous about this episode of V. I felt the series got off to an uneven but intriguing start last fall, but there were notable issues to work out – and knowing that the series had halted production and gone through some big changes behind the scenes had me prepared for a big mess.

Instead, I found a show that felt more confident than before and seems well on its way to becoming something really special. Which is to say, welcome back, V!

I'm loving how tough Erica is, both physically and mentally. The fight at the beginning of the episode certainly proved the former, as she not only struck the first blow (with an assist from a picture frame) against the Visitor attempting to kill her, but continued to fight hard against him, until she took him out. But what really was fun was her reaction to the Visitors waltzing in to the FBI, saying they could help find who was behind the explosion in the last episode. This was a very interesting turn of events, as first Erica understandably was panicking (on the inside that is), afraid she and her friends were about to be revealed as the culprits – then confusion when it turned out the Vs had fingered an unrelated guy, Kyle Hobbes. But what followed was what really had me digging Erica, as she decided that if the Vs wanted this known mercenary taken down, he must be dangerous to them, so who better to recruit for the Resistance? We still have yet to see Erica and Anna on screen, but this episode allowed for the two of them to play a little game of chess with one another, even without meeting.

Speaking of chess games, I loved Chad doing the story on the V Health Centers Anna was demanding of him, but throwing in that he was going to accept their cure. Anna's smile, as she noted, "Mr. Decker just made sure we took very good care of him," seemed to hint that she respected Chad's move, as the two continue to attempt to manipulate one another.

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I continue to care little about Tyler, but we did see glimpse of his father in this episode, and it was yet another sci-fi All-Star on the series – Nicholas Lea, known to X-Files fans everywhere as Krycek. On top of that, we also got Andromeda's Lexa Doig as Ryan's V doctor friend. I swear, you could populate a Comic-Con with the actors on this show. Doig was used to quickly give us an answer for what exactly R6 is, from the last episode, as we learned it was a tagging system the Vs were putting inside humans. I really appreciate the fact that after such a long break, new showrunner Scott Rosenbaum (The Shield / Chuck), who wrote this episode, made sure to deliver on some quick answers for certain aspects we left off with.

It's hard not to wonder whether there is still more to R6, after it was given to Jack and he told Erica he felt different. Of course Jack went through a pretty traumatic, disturbing event – well conveyed as we saw his horror at realizing the Visitors were the ones "fixing" him. So I find myself curious whether something is truly wrong with Jack or if it's all in his head… but it's probably real, right?

The end of the episode also delivered in terms of a couple of very offbeat, compelling sequences. My favorite was when Valerie found the dead mouse and the growing realization she had that we shared in – which was that she wanted to eat the freaking thing! In the original V, an iconic moment was Diana eating that rat, and I loved how they finally did a direct reference to that here, but in such an unusual way, as Valerie was disgusted and confused by what she was feeling.

Meanwhile, we also saw Anna go about her mating ritual, picking out a nameless, silent hulk of a Visitor that she pulled a black widow on, literally consuming him once she got what she needed. It was a creepy, trippy way to end an episode that put a lot into play and has me excited to see where the show goes from here.